Making and Breaking Routines

(gentle inspirational music) ♪ Headspace Studios ♪ (gentle calming music) Welcome to Sunday Scaries Student Edition, a special Sunday Scaries series for teens and students, presented by Spotify and Headspace. I'm Dora, a meditation teacher at Headspace. And I'm Gael, creator and host of the podcast Teenager Therapy. Gael and I will be chatting about a few different topics during this series and in each episode, I'll provide a meditation based on our conversation that can hopefully provide you with some mindful tools to get you through the rest of your week. She's really good at this. Thanks Gael. So how are things with you? What's on your mind this week? Oh well, I'm doing good. I've been thinking a lot recently about routines and what role they have in my life. Specifically when I break my routine, what feelings does that invoke in me? And then when I do follow it, how do I feel? Ooh, this is a juicy topic. I love my morning and nighttime routine. But again, as you said, like, what comes up when I have to break my routine and sometimes I can be really hard on myself. So I'm excited to dive into this topic. So why do you think that having a self-care routine is so important for your mental health? Yeah, there is that saying, right, you can't pour from an empty cup. And so, being able to take care of yourself mentally, physically, spiritually, socially is so important to be able to refill your cup and to nourish yourself. I think we can pour a lot into others and into our environments and sometimes we forget about ourselves. Yeah, that's really important. I think routine is one of the biggest forms of self-care that one can give ourselves. Yeah. I mean, it reduces so much anxiety, so much of the unknown. Yeah. And it allows us to figure out what we enjoy. Yeah. And it gives us that space to actually do it. So Dora, you seem so put together to me. What exactly is your self-care routine? Wake up at five and meditate, journal, and then I'll go to the gym and then I'll come home and my breakfast is like, oh, I'm really into overnight oats right now. So like that's my, Yeah, yeah. That's my jam. And then, yeah, I'll start my day. 7:00 AM to like 3:00 PM is like, optimal work time. After 3:00 PM, don't ask me for nothing. (laughs) Right, it's like, I can't do the big tasks. I can't do anything, and then yeah, I start getting ready for bed at like 8:30. Same thing, meditate, journal, read a book. And I've been trying to have my screens off early as well 'cause I noticed that affects my dreams. Yeah, sleep is also a really big thing for me. I'll turn on my red lights Yeah. And like, yeah. That is waking up and sleeping early. Have you always been like that when you were high...